President Donald Trump made countering immigration one in all his flagship points throughout final yr’s presidential marketing campaign, promising an unprecedented variety of deportations.
In his first eight months in workplace, that promise was round 350,000 deportations, a determine that features deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (round 200,000), Customs and Border Safety (greater than 132,000), and nearly 18,000 self-deportations, in response to CNN.
ICE has taken heart stage in Trump’s mass deportation marketing campaign, raiding houses, workplaces, and public parks searching for undocumented immigrants. To help its efforts, the ICE has at its disposal a number of applied sciences able to figuring out and surveilling people and communities.
Here’s a recap of among the know-how that ICE has in its digital arsenal.
Clearview AI facial recognition
Clearview AI is maybe probably the most well-known facial recognition firm at present. For years, the corporate promised to have the ability to determine any face by looking by way of a big database of images it had scraped from the web.
On Monday, 404 Media reported that ICE has signed a contract with the corporate to help its regulation enforcement arm Homeland Safety Investigations (HSI), “with capabilities of figuring out victims and offenders in little one sexual exploitation circumstances and assaults towards regulation enforcement officers.”
In response to a authorities procurement database, the contract signed final week is value $3.75 million.
ICE has had different contracts with Clearview AI within the final couple of years. In September 2024, the company bought “forensic software program” from the corporate, a deal value $1.1 million. The yr earlier than, ICE paid Clearview AI almost $800,000 for “facial recognition enterprise licenses.”
Clearview AI didn’t reply to a request for remark.
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Do you will have extra details about ICE and the know-how it makes use of? We might like to find out how this impacts you. From a non-work machine, you may contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Sign at +1 917 257 1382, or through Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or e mail. You can also contact TechCrunch through SecureDrop.
Paragon cellphone adware
In September 2024, ICE signed a contract value $2 million with Israeli adware maker Paragon Options. Virtually instantly, the Biden administration issued a “cease work order,” placing the contract underneath evaluate to verify it complied with an government order on the federal government’s use of economic adware.
Due to that order, for almost a yr, the contract remained in limbo. Then, final week, the Trump administration lifted the cease work order, successfully reactivating the contract.
At this level, it’s unclear what’s the standing of Paragon’s relationship with ICE in apply.
The information entry from final week mentioned that the contract with Parago is for “a totally configured proprietary answer together with license, {hardware}, guarantee, upkeep, and coaching.” Virtually talking, except the {hardware} set up and coaching have been accomplished final yr, it might take a while for ICE to have Paragon’s system up and working.
It’s additionally unclear if the adware will likely be utilized by ICE or HSI, an company whose investigations should not restricted to immigration, but additionally cowl on-line little one sexual exploitation, human trafficking, monetary fraud, and extra.
Paragon has lengthy tried to painting itself as an “moral” and accountable adware maker, and now has to resolve if it’s moral to work with Trump’s ICE. Lots has occurred to Paragon within the final yr. In December, American personal fairness large AE Industrial bought Paragon, with a plan to merge it with cybersecurity firm Purple Lattice, in response to Israeli tech information web site Calcalist.
In an indication that the merger might have taken place, when TechCrunch reached out to Paragon for touch upon the reactivation of the ICE contract final week, we have been referred to RedLattice’s new vice chairman of selling and communications Jennifer Iras.
RedLattice’s Iras didn’t reply to a request for remark for this text, nor for final week’s article.
In the previous few months, Paragon has been ensnared in a adware scandal in Italy, the place the federal government has been accused of spying on journalists and immigration activists. In response, Paragon reduce ties with Italy’s intelligence companies.
LexisNexis’ authorized and public information databases
For years, ICE has used the authorized analysis and public information information dealer LexisNexis to help its investigations.
In 2022, two non-profits obtained paperwork through Freedom of Data Act requests, which revealed that ICE carried out greater than 1.2 million searches over seven months utilizing a instrument known as Accurint Digital Crime Middle. ICE used the instrument to examine the background info of migrants.
A yr later, The Intercept revealed that ICE was utilizing LexisNexis to detect suspicious exercise and examine migrants earlier than they even dedicated a criminal offense, a program {that a} critic mentioned enabled “mass surveillance.”
In response to public information, LexisNexis at present gives ICE “with a regulation enforcement investigative database subscription (LEIDS) which permits entry to public information and business information to help felony investigations.”
This yr, ICE has paid $4.7 million to subscribe to the service.
LexisNexis spokesperson Jennifer Richman advised TechCrunch that ICE has used the corporate’s product “information and analytics options for many years, throughout a number of administrations.”
“Our dedication is to help the accountable and moral use of information, in full compliance with legal guidelines and laws, and for the safety of all residents of the USA,” mentioned Richman, who added that LexisNexis “companions with greater than 7,500 federal, state, native, tribal, and territorial companies throughout the USA to advance public security and safety.”
Surveillance large Palantir
Information analytics and surveillance know-how large Palantir has signed a number of contracts with ICE within the final yr. The most important contract, value $18.5 million from September 2024, is for a database system known as “Investigative Case Administration,” or ICM.
The contract for ICM goes again to 2022, when Palantir signed a $95.9 million take care of Palantir. The Peter Thiel-founded firm’s relationship with ICE dates again to the early 2010s.
Earlier this yr, 404 Media, which has reported extensively on the know-how powering Trump’s deportation efforts, and significantly Palantir’s relationship with ICE, revealed particulars of how the ICM database works. The tech information web site reported that it noticed a latest model of the database, which permits ICE to filter individuals primarily based on their immigration standing, bodily traits, felony affiliation, location information, and extra.
404 Media cited “a supply aware of the database,” who mentioned it’s made up of ‘tables upon tables’ of information and that it could possibly construct studies that present, for instance, people who find themselves on a particular kind of visa who got here into the nation at a particular port of entry, who got here from a particular nation, and who’ve a particular hair colour (or any variety of a whole bunch of information factors).”
The instrument, and Palantir’s relationship with ICE, was controversial sufficient that sources throughout the firm leaked to 404 Media an inner wiki the place Palantir justifies working with Trump’s ICE.
Palantir can be creating a instrument known as “ImmigrationOS,” in response to a contract value $30 million revealed by Enterprise Insider.
ImmigrationOS is claimed to be designed to streamline the “choice and apprehension operations of unlawful aliens,” give “close to real-time visibility” into self-deportations, and monitor individuals overstaying their visa, in response to a doc first reported on by Wired.
